It was not until a spell of exhaustingly hot weather set in in early
July that Hal saw a still more noticeable frailty in Lorraine.
She was quite unable to act, and spent a great deal of time on her sofa
near the window, where she could just distinguish the river through the
trees. It seemed to have a growing fascination for her.
“I’ve always thought,” she told Hal one day, “how I’d like to go away
from the fret and worry of London, smoothly down the river to a haven
of sunshine and sea.”
“Why don’t you go, Lorry. Why not go at once, before you get any
weaker?”
“I think I must. This sultry heat is too much for me, and I’m very
tired of London and everything belonging to it. I should like to have
gone to my old haven on the Italian Riviera, but it would be too hot.”
“Why so far?”
Lorraine glanced at Hal with a strange expression in her eyes, as she
said:
“It is a greater rest to get right away. I shall try some little place
in Brittany. Switzerland is so overrun with tourists in the summer.”
When she was alone, some of the quiet went out of Lorraine’s face and a
restless look of pain crept in. She shaded her eyes and gazed long at
the river.
That old spirit of recklessness, which had caused her to hurl scorn and
defiance at Mrs. Hermon’s emissary, and afterwards allow Alymer to
visit her at the little fishing-village, against his wiser judgment,
had passed away now, and given place to one of poignant questioning—a
spirit of questioning concerning that mad action of hers, and its
results. She could not find it in her heart to regret it, not for one
moment; but nevertheless her mind was sore troubled concerning the
future for Alymer and herself.
And at the back of all the questioning there sounded ever an insistent
call to renounce—something above and beyond all desire and all seeming,
which told her she must not remain in his life, that, as far as she was
concerned, he must be free for the great work of his future.
And yet how hard it was to go! Ever and anon her longing whispered,
“Why seek a crisis yet? Why not go on the same a little longer?”
But since, before long, she would be compelled to go, and since the
nausea of London was gaining upon her, she began to feel it would
certainly be wiser to start at once, and find some homely, quiet spot
where she could remain in privacy, with her identity unknown for some
months.
And always that quiet voice in the background insisted that she must
cut herself off from Alymer Hermon.
Soon after Hal had left her he came in, and, standing as usual upon the
hearth, regarded her with grave eyes. He was nearly always grave now,
as with some recollection that weighed heavily on his mind.
Lorraine tried to rally him, but without much success; and a pitiless
thought that had sometimes assailed her of late—that he regretted their
friendship and everything connected with it, struck icily on her heart.
He was too loyal to show it, and yet, that strong instinct of
womanhood, which reads closed books as if they were spread open to the
light, sounded its warning note. He would never blame her openly, but
in his heart he was already beginning to find it a little difficult not
to do so secretly.
“You can’t go away alone, Lorry,” he said unhappily, “and I can’t
possibly come with you.”
“Of course you can’t,” cheerfully. “It isn’t to be thought of for a
moment. I don’t know whether you can even come and see me. You
certainly mustn’t run any risks just now. Flip tells me Hall is
interested, and you may get your big chance shortly through him.”
“Still, I shall feel rather a beast.”
“You mustn’t do anything so silly.”
She got up and came and stood near him, leaning her face against his
arm.
“If you will write to me often, dearie, I shall be all right. If you
worry I shall be miserable. Try to understand that you have done
nothing to make me unhappy. A little while ago I had a dream of how I
longed to go away with a little one of my own, to some quiet spot far
removed from all I have ever known. If I am to realise my dream, how
should I not be happy? It is what I asked life to give me.”
But his eyes lost none of their gravity. It was evident, in the midst
of his dawning success, some cloud had descended upon his horizon, and
shrouded much of the sunlight.
Lorraine’s sensitive temperament read it quickly, and she decided, for
his sake, to hasten her departure. She thought her continued presence
in London under the circumstances was a continual anxiety to him, and
that he would only breathe freely when she was safe in Brittany.
She did not know—how should she—that after that week’s madness on the
southern coast there had come rather a terrible revelation to the man
whom fortune seemed to be smothering with favours.
It had not come all at once. It had been there, or at any rate the gist
of it, for some time. But when it was present in full force, it had the
power to make all the adulation, triumph, and hopefulness of his career
seem but a small thing and of little account, because of one great
desire beyond his reach.
It came definitely into being during those many evenings Hal spent at
the Cromwell Road flat, when Dudley was away in Holloway with his
friend.
It reached a climax of realisation when she openly wore the watch and
chain Sir Edwin had sent to her. The night he asked her not to wear it,
and she tautingly refused, saw him, with all his success and favours,
one of the most perplexed and unhappy men in London.
It was just the waywardness of the little god Love. The fair débutantes
with money and influence had left him untouched. No older woman but
Lorraine had disturbed his peace, or appealed to his deepest
affections.
It was left to Hal, the mocker, the outspoken, the impatient of giant
inches and splendid head, to awaken his heart to all its richness of
strong, enduring love.
And what did it mean to her?
The sunshine and the joy might go out of all he was winning and
achieving, if it might not be won and achieved for her—but what did she
care—what was she ever likely to care?
Had she not always dealt him laughter and careless scorn where other
women bowed down? Had she not, over and over, weighed him in the
balance, in that quiet, direct way of hers, and seen the weak strain
that had always been there? First the lack of purpose, the idle
indifference, which, in a different guise, had led up to a memory which
now tortured his mind—the memory of a mad week; of love that was not
love, because his whole soul was not given with it—nay, worse, was
actually given in unconsciousness elsewhere. If she ever knew of that,
what must her indignation and scorn be then?… Would it not indeed
separate them for ever?
And even if it did, could it make him unlove her?… Why should it, since
he had waited no encouragement before he gave her all? If he knew why
he loved her, it might.
But he did not even know that. It was a thing outside questioning;
something he seemed to have had no free will about. It was just there—a
strong, undeniable fact.
Why reason? It did not _need_ reasoning. He loved her. He would always
love her—simply because she was Hal—and as Hal, to him, was the one
woman who filled his heart.
No; Lorraine did not know just what fire of repentance and
self-condemnation and hopeless aching her recklessness had lit for him;
but it was enough that his gravity grew and deepened, and she believed
she could lighten it.
She made immediate plans; cancelled her present engagement at
considerable monetary loss to herself, and almost before any of them
realised it, had vanished to a little out-of-the-way spot in Brittany,
alone with Jean.
Hal was quite unhappy that she could not go to her for her own summer
holiday, but Dick Bruce’s people were taking her to Norway with them,
and she would not have a day to spare.
She made Alymer promise to run across and see how she was, if possible,
and then departed without any suspicions or forebodings, with Dudley
and Dick to join the rest of the party at Hull, whence they were to
start for the Fiords.
When she returned early in September, Lorraine was still away, and her
letters gave no hint of returning. Still a little anxious, she sought
an interview with Alymer, asking him to meet her for tea the following
day.
The instant they met, Hal saw the change in him, and exclaimed in
surprise:
“Haven’t you had a holiday? You don’t look very grand.”
Unable to meet her eyes, he turned away towards a small table.
“Oh yes, I’ve had a holiday. I’ve been in France studying the language.
I can talk like a French froggy now.”
“Then of course, you saw Lorraine?”
“Yes.”
“I wanted to see you about Lorry,” with direct, straight gaze.
He steadied his features with an effort.
“I guessed so.”
“Well, what is the matter with her?”
“Nothing very much. She got thoroughly low I think, and is not pulling
up very quickly.”
“I don’t understand it,” with puzzled, doubtful eyes. “Lorry is not
like that. She is quite strong really. She has only once before gone
under like this, and then it was a mental strain. I wonder if it is
anything the same again? Did you see much of her?”
“I saw her four or five times.”
“And she didn’t tell you anything?”
“Anything about what?”
“Well—about her husband, for instance. He isn’t worrying her again, is
he?”
“She did not speak of him at all.”
“Then what is it?… I wish she had not gone so far away. I wish I could
get to her. Did she say when she might be coming back?”
“Not at present. She likes being there. She does not want to come
back.”
“That’s what I can’t understand. Something odd seems to have changed
her. Have you thought so.”
“I don’t think it odd in Lorraine to fancy a long spell of country
life. She was always loved the country.”
“Not alone,” with decision, “except for a good reason. I feel there is
a reason now, and I do not know it.”
Suddenly she gave him another direct look.
“You are changed too. You are years older. Is it your advancing
success, or what? … I don’t say it isn’t becoming,” with a dash of her
old banter—“but it seems sudden.”
He raised his eyes slowly and looked into her face with an expression
that in some way hurt her. It was the look of a devoted dog, craving
forgiveness.
She pushed her cup away impatiently, half laughing and half serious.
“Don’t look at me like that, Baby,” striving blindly to rally him—“you
make me feel as if I had smacked you.”
He laughed to reassure her, and changed the subject to Norway, trying
to keep her mind from further questioning concerning himself and
Lorraine.
After tea she left him to go down to Shoreditch with Dick, first
meeting him and the forlorn “G” at the Cheshire Cheese for their usual
high tea.
It had become quite an institution now that “G” should join them, and,
as Hal had predicted, she and Dick were firm friends. It was the
brightest spot of the music-teacher’s life since Basil Hayward died,
and neither of them would have disappointed her for the world if they
could help it.
Tonight Quin was there also, so Hal was able to get a few words
privately with Dick.
“What in the world is the matter with Alymer?” she asked. “I had tea
with him this afternoon. He seems awfully down on his luck.”
“I don’t know what it is,” Dick answered. “He is certainly not very
gay—yet that last case he won before the Law Courts closed should have
put him in fine feather for the whole vacation. Did you ask him if
anything was wrong?”
“Yes; but he would only prevaricate. He has been in France, you know,
studying the language, and he saw Lorraine, but he says very little
about her. I wish I had time to go over and see her. Why, in the name
of goodness, is she not acting this winter?”
But Dick could not help her to any solution, and an accumulation of
work kept her too busy to brood on the puzzle.
It was at the end of October the shock came.
Hal reached home before Dudley that evening, and found a foreign letter
awaiting her, written in an unfamiliar handwriting, and bearing the
post mark of the little village where Lorraine so obstinately remained.
With an instant sense of apprehension, she tore open the envelope, and
read its contents with incredulity, amazement, and anxiety struggling
together in her face.
Then she sat down in the nearest chair with a gasp, and stared blankly
at the window, as if she could not grasp the import of the bewildering
news.
The letter was from Jean, partly in French, and partly in English. It
informed Hal, in somewhat ambiguous phrases, that La Chère Madame was
very ill, and daily growing weaker, and she, Jean, was very worried and
unhappy about her. She thought if mademoiselle could possibly get away,
she should come at once. It then went on to make a statement which took
Hal’s breath away.
“L’enfant!... l’enfant!...” she repeated in a gasping sort of
undertone, and stared with bewildered eyes at the window.
What could have happened?... What did it all mean?
Then with a rush all the full significance seemed to come to her.
Lorraine, ill and alone in that little far-away village, and this
incomprehensible thing coming upon her; no one but a paid, though
devoted maid to take care of her; no friend to help her in the
inevitable hours of dread, and perhaps painful memories and
apprehensions.
All her quick, warm-hearted sympathy welled up and filled her soul. Of
course she must go at once, tonight if possible, or early tomorrow.
Yet as she struggled to collect her thoughts and form plans, she was
conscious of a dumb, nervous cry: “What will Dudley say?... What in the
world will Dudley say?”